The focus of the research was on the cumulative risk of arrests, i.e., how likely were participants at different ages to have been arrested at least once at some point in their lives? Because not all participants completed every wave of interviews, the results could only be reported as ranges, but anywhere in those ranges represents a stunning result: By age 18, the cumulative arrest prevalence rate was between 15.9% and 26.8%. By age 23, it had risen to between 25.3% and 41.4%.

It’s a remarkably common experience for American young people to be arrested. Far more common, the study authors note, than it was in the mid-1960s when another study of this sort was conducted. Some of this of course reflects a rise in youth crime, but some of it almost certainly reflects changes in policing, including the widespread use of stop-and-frisk tactics.